Social Security has once again broken a new record in April with spending allocated to the payment of contributory pensions. The monthly payroll now amounts to 14,336.2 million euros, a figure that confirms the growing weight of this item within the public system and which is once again driven, above all, by retirement pensions.
Three out of every four euros of the contributory payroll are allocated to retirement. Specifically, this benefit accounts for 73.2% of spending, with 10,499.2 million euros paid in April. Next are widow’s pensions, with 2,281.9 million, and permanent disability pensions, with 1,331.6 million. To a lesser extent, Social Security allocated 185 million euros to orphan’s pensions and 38.4 million to benefits for family members.
In total, the system paid 10,476,332 contributory pensions to nearly 9.5 million people in April. Of these, 6.7 million correspond to retirement pensions, 2.3 million to widowhood, 1.1 million to permanent disability, 336,141 to orphanhood and 46,768 to benefits for family members.
Now, these figures reflect only a general average. The pension that each beneficiary receives depends on their work career, the bases for which they have contributed and the regime in which they have been included. Therefore, within the same system, the differences between some pensioners and others continue to be very wide.
The highest average pension
The average pension from the Social Security system stood at 1,368.4 euros per month in April, which is 4.5% more than in the same month of the previous year. This is the one that encompasses all contributory pensions, that is, retirement, permanent disability, widowhood, orphanhood and benefits for family members.
In the case of retirement, the average amount now reaches 1,569.7 euros per month, 4.4% more than in April 2025. This benefit is received by more than two-thirds of all pensioners and is, by far, the one that concentrates the majority of the system’s spending.
By regime, the General Regime maintains an average retirement pension of 1,729.6 euros per month. The difference with self-employed workers continues to be notable, since in the Special Regime for Self-Employed Workers the average pension remains at 1,058.5 euros.
But the highest amount continues to be in Coal Mining, where retirees from this regime receive an average of 2,998.3 euros per month, practically double the average general retirement pension. The Sea Regime also exceeds the average, with 1,734.2 euros per month.
Regarding the average widow’s pension, in April it reached 973.9 euros per month.
It is worth remembering that Coal Mining traditionally has higher contribution bases than other workers, which explains the higher amount of their pensions. On the other hand, average pensions rise every month due to the natural substitution of beneficiaries: new additions usually have higher contribution bases, raising the system average. In fact, the monthly amount of new retirement registrations amounted to 1,594.1 euros on average in November.
The average pension rises again
The average pension also rises again and does so due to the “substitution” effect, that is, the new pensions that enter the system tend to be higher than those that cause loss, because they come from careers with higher contribution bases. According to the latest available data, corresponding to March, the monthly amount of new retirement registrations amounted to 1,653.6 euros on average.
In April, the average retirement pension stood at 1,569.7 euros, compared to the 1,568.5 euros registered in March. The average pension for the system as a whole also increased slightly, from 1,367.4 euros the previous month to the current 1,368.4 euros.
Delayed retirements increase
In the first three months of 2026, 96,612 new retirement pension registrations were registered. Of them, almost 13% corresponded to voluntary delayed retirements, specifically 12.7%.
This percentage is almost two points more than at the end of 2025 and is eight points above the figures recorded in 2019. The trend confirms that more and more workers are voluntarily delaying their exit from the labor market, in part due to the incentives approved for those who decide to prolong their professional career.
As a consequence of this voluntary delay and less anticipation, the average age of access to retirement remains at 65.2 years. In 2019 it was 64.4 years. In addition, 66.1% of new retirees accessed the pension at ordinary age.
Social Security also highlights that the average resolution time for retirement files was 11.7 days in March, the latest data available. This period remains well below the 90 days established by regulations as the maximum resolution time.
Gender Gap Plugin
In April, 1,463,374 pensions have the supplement to reduce the gender gap. In 75% of the cases, the owners are women, with 1,097,463 beneficiaries.
The average monthly amount of this supplement is 76.92 euros. Of the total supplemented pensions, 24% correspond to pensioners with a child, with 350,538 cases. Half are beneficiaries with two children, 731,223 pensions. In addition, about 17.7% receive 259,235 pensions with three children, and 8.4% with four children, 122,375.
This supplement has been in force since February 2021 and consists of a fixed amount of 36.9 euros per month per child after the revaluation applied in 2026. The application must be made at the time the pension is requested.
Passive Classes
In addition to Social Security contributory pensions, the public system includes Passive Class pensions, which mainly affect military personnel, officials of the General State Administration, the Administration of Justice, the General Courts and other constitutional or state bodies, as well as officials transferred to the autonomous communities.
The monthly pension payroll for Passive Classes amounted to 1,776.9 million euros in March, the latest data available. This figure represents an increase of 108.7 million compared to the same month of the previous year, 6.5% more.
The number of pensions in force was 738,790, which represents 14,475 more pensions than a year before, with an annual variation of 2%. In total, this regime has 718,840 pensioners.